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Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Believe it or not, the FBI is still investigating Phylicia Barnes‘ death
three months after her body was found in the Susquehanna River.

And it looks like they’ve made some progress and might even have a
couple of suspects in the 16-year-old’s death.

An FBI agent with Maryland’s child exploitation task
force filed three search warrants seeking access to the 16-year-old’s
email and Facebook accounts and the accounts of at least three other
people.

It’s unclear whether a sex crime was committed. The warrant’s
affidavits are under seal, but a former FBI official told the Observer
that the agency must have probable cause that exploitation occurred in
order to secure the warrants.

“This is not a shotgun approach of putting out search warrants to see
if it hits something,” said Chris Swecker, who once headed the FBI in
North Carolina and later led all the agency’s worldwide criminal
investigations. “This is a focused investigation. They’re pulling on a
string. And that string is child exploitation.”

An honor student at Union Academy charter school in Monroe, Barnes
disappeared on Dec. 28 while visiting relatives in Baltimore.

The case drew nationwide attention. Baltimore police called it their
most extensive search for a missing person in years. Hundreds of
volunteers posted fliers with Phylicia’s bright smile around the city.
Her family offered a $25,000 reward.

In Monroe, her Union Academy classmates tied purple ribbons around
trees at the charter school where she was set to graduate in spring.

Four months later, her nude body was found floating in the
Susquehanna River, about 40 miles northeast of Baltimore. Her death was
ruled a homicide, but police did not release a cause.
On Friday, the Maryland FBI did not return calls. Baltimore and
Maryland police declined to discuss the investigation.

“At the end of the day, we’re trying to get the killer behind bars
and behind bars for a long time,” Baltimore police spokesman Anthony
Guglielmi said. “And we’re going to use every tool at our disposal.”

The search warrants, released June 30, request access to at least
seven email accounts operated by Yahoo and AOL. Three include Phylicia’s
name or variations of it.

The Observer sent inquiries to each email address, but none were
returned.

The search warrants, filed by Special Agent Jacqueline Dougher, also
request access to four Facebook pages, including Phylicia’s. Three of
the pages already have been taken down.
In the warrants, Dougher cites a “reason to believe” that the search
will reveal evidence of child sex crimes or child pornography.

Phylicia’s father, Russell Barnes, did not know of any sex crimes,
but said he thought it was connected to his daughter being found nude.
He said investigators told him some people interviewed have not been
completely honest.

“Other people have been lying and they’re trying to figure it all
out,” he said. “They’re doing everything they can to find out who killed
Phylicia and that’s what we want them to do.”

We hope they do get justice for Phylicia and closure for her family.Source

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi authorities are reviewing the case
of a black man who was found hanging dead from a tree after relatives
claimed the state's deputy medical examiner can't be trusted because he
falsified information about a British woman's death while working in
Africa in the 1980s.

The Mississippi Department of Public Safety
said it began its investigation Monday after allegations surfaced that
Dr. Adel Shaker falsified information in the 1998 death of Julie Ward, a
British tourist killed on a visit to Kenya. Shaker was a pathologist in
Kenya at the time.

Shaker told The Associated Press on Monday
that his boss in Kenya changed his report to make it look like Ward was
killed by wild animals instead of being murdered. Shaker said top
officials in Kenya were involved in the cover-up and he had not been
able to do anything about it because of Kenya's oppressive regime at the
time.
Shaker said he set the record straight during a British
inquest in 2004.

By Bill
Wilson
While Obama sits here and plays rhetorical games with the $14.294
trillion debt ceiling, attempting to sucker Republicans into increasing
taxes, there are strong headwinds from across the Atlantic that
threaten the U.S. economy.

Greece’s default is inevitable. And the fate of the euro is in
question.

The only real question currently facing policymakers in Brussels is
whether banks foolish enough to lend money to a bankrupt socialist
government will take losses, or if the European Central Bank (ECB) will
simply print more money to bail out Greece’s creditors.

That decision will have major ripple effects. If bondholders take
losses on Greek debt, American financial institutions like Bank of
America, Goldman Sachs, and AIG are said to be on the hook for honoring
credit default swaps sold to insure against Greece’s default on its
€340 billion debt.

If, on the other hand, the banks are bailed out, and the ECB buys
back the Greek bonds with printed money, then it is the central bank
that is on the hook for any Greek default.

So, whether the ECB further intervenes at this point or not, a Greek
default would hurt the ECB — and the euro — most of all.

Even if U.S. financial institutions foolish enough to insure against
Greek default were still to be the ones on the hook to honor the swaps,
nobody expects the global banking ruling class to really take any real
losses on sovereign debt, no matter how richly deserved. The
assumption is that these institutions cannot afford to honor the credit
default swaps. So, who would bail them out?

Recently, First Lady Jill-of-all-trades Michelle Obama added another
job to her ever-expanding repertoire: poacher. When speaking to
reporters at an event at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on May
11th, she unveiled her "Let's
Move" campaign to stop childhood obesity which included getting
rid of popular cartoon characters in the marketing of unhealthy foods
(such as sugary cereals) and using those characters to only promote
healthy alternatives (perhaps a donkey who eats veggies?).

Madame Obama claims that this program is meant to lower rates of
childhood obesity and diabetes by encouraging kids to eat healthy and
watch their weight, however she is missing one key fact: the foods that
children eat are the choice of the parent, not the child. If a parent
wants to buy their children Fruit Loops, they will, regardless of
advertising. And by the same token, if a parent only wants their child
to eat granola, it doesn’t matter how “Gr-r-reat” Frosted Flakes are,
their child won’t be eating them.

This war on the General Mills characters (and any other animations
related to the sale of children’s foods) is only a reprise of a previous
war on Joe Camel, the popular cartoon camel who once adorned magazine
pages and TV ads selling Camel cigarettes. This campaign was done to
help prevent kids from smoking, however it goes without saying that
juveniles are no less inclined to smoke cigarettes now that Joe Camel
and the Marlboro Man have gone the way of the Dodo.

Michelle Obama’s campaign is not only patently ridiculous, but also a
gross waste of our country’s time and energy. We need to be focusing
on the economic crisis and the debt ceiling, not trying to stop kids
from being “coo coo” for coco puffs.

In the weeks following this announcement, a campaign to combat this
graphic slaughter was created, known as the Sensible
Food Policy Coalition, which is ironically being headed by known
Mao Ze Dong enthusiast and former Obama Administration communicator,
Anita Dunn.

One main reason that changing the marketing strategy of so-called
unhealthy products to children will fail in preventing them from
becoming obese or contracting diabetes is because of the simple fact
that kids do not like the taste of vegetables, preferring a sweeter
snack. Not only that, but because of their parents insistence that they
are “good for them”, they become rebellious and refuse to eat them (as
we all did as children), and that wouldn’t change, even if Tony the
Tiger suddenly became a fruit lover (eat gr-r-rapes!) or the Lucky
Charms Leprechaun sang “catch me lucky carrots, they’re magically
lowfat” (it’s just not as catchy).
Get full story here.

At least 45 militants were killed in
Pakistan's restive northwest in one of the deadliest strikes by US
drones, signalling Washington's resolve to step up assault on terror
groups in this country despite growing strains in ties with its key
ally. Theunusually heavy barrage of three missile strikes in a span of
12 hours, targeting militant hideouts in north and south Waziristan took
one of the largest death toll in the controversial unacknowledged air
campaign.

The drone attacks
commenced on Monday night when unmanned air craft unleashed nine
missiles into a suspected militant compound and a vehicle in north
Waziristan, killing 25 militants, local officials were quoted by TV
channels as saying. Few hours later, the drone struck again in nearby
South Waziristan firing missiles and killing five militants.
The drones
reappeared early this morning over the area firing two missiles at
another compound in North Waziristan killing 15 militants.

It was the second largest death toll
in drone campaign. In 2009 a missile attack killed 70 militants in south
Waziristan.
The stepped up drone
campaign follows on the heels of Obama Administration's announcement
that it was suspending more than one-third of the massive USD 2 billion
military assistance to Pakistan.

The three attacks in
quick succession indicates that White House has no intention of
stopping the drone campaign that has contributed to tensions between
Washington and Islamabad.

Washington has
called Pakistan's semi-autonomous North West Tribal Region as the most
dangerous place on earth and the global headquarters of dreaded Al Qaeda
and is pressing Islamabad to launch a full scale military operation in
North Waziristan region to strike at Haqqani network faction of the
Taliban. But the Pakistan military claims that its troops are too over
stretched by operations against Taliban in other areas to undertake such
an offensive, but analysts believe that Islamabad is hesitant to cross
militants with whom it has historical links and who could be useful
allies in Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw.

The hostile relations are being whipped into a frenzy in
Syria this week, following the dubious decisions by American and French
Governments to criticise Assad.

I don’t recall the environment in Libya being as febrile prior to
NATO campaign. However, I don’t believe as much support rallied for
Gadaffi in Libya either.

The damge to embassies in Damascus is indicative of a metaphorical
threat more than anything. I have commented before on the bizarre
comparisons between Libya and Syria, and yet the complete dichotomy of
action taken by the UN, NATO and the EU.

I have also deliberated the risk of following action in Libya with
action in Syria.
Syria have yet to divulge the extent of their nuclear weapons
programme to the UN. Such an outstanding requirement poses a dangerous
threat in a tempestuous and unstable country on the border of more
tempestuous and unstable countries in the Middle East.

Even without the potential damage of nuclear weapon power-mongering,
there is the danger that the West’s verbal criticisms alone will spark a
collaboration between dictators.

With the assault on French and US Embassies, this threat seems to be
even more realistic.
Syrians absconding to Turkey would not be followed by Assad’s forces,
but Assad combined with Gadaffi, and even Bahrain, Yemen and others,
would make a formidable foe.

We have already seen Gadaffi threaten Europeans. Now we see the
breaking of diplomatic relations.
Given that Assad has been gesturing to make changes to the country,
which is more than Gadaffi did, the heavy criticism and calls for Assad
to stand down were an unnecessary blow to diplomatic relations. Rather
like Libya, the anti-establishment groups are demanding the dictator
must go, and to support them, is to ruin any potential for a diplomatic
resolution. If you don’t believe me, look at Libya again.

The West is establishing a dangerous precedent that could mean even
more tenuous relations in the Arab Spring.

Posted by Robert Rapier
In 2008, I believed all year long that Barack Obama would win the
presidency. Even when Hillary Clinton was still the favorite to win the
nomination, I thought Obama’s charisma would ultimately win him the
Democratic nomination, and then the presidency. The night before the
election I
wrote that I thought he would capture more than 300 electoral votes
(he got 356) and would beat McCain by more than 100 electoral vote (the
margin of victory was 192 electoral votes). On the night of the
election, I
wrote a post congratulating him. I was happy to see him elected.
But in the same post I also predicted that he would disappoint many.

There is no question that Obama inherited a mess of an economy from
the previous administration. And if McCain had been elected, I would
probably be writing the same story about him. I think that 100 years
from now, history will look back on Obama as having broken important
racial barriers. His election inspired hope around the world. But it
seems that the ability to give a charismatic speech does not necessarily
translate into being a good president. I believe history will judge
Barack Obama as a mediocre president.
Naturally Republicans are going to view Obama negatively, but he has
come under harsh criticism within his own party. Jon Stewart summed
it up like this:

(CNN) – Count Jon Stewart among the
legion of frustrated supporters of President Obama.

Appearing on Fox News’ The Bill O’Reilly
show Wednesday, the liberal comedian said he thought Obama would do a
better job when he voted for him in the 2008 presidential election.

“I think people feel a disappointment in
that there was a sense that Jesus will walk on water and now you are
looking at it like, ‘Oh look at that, he’s just treading water’ … I
thought he’d do a better job,” said Stewart.

Stewart, who maintains he ultimately does
not regret his vote for Obama, said he is “saddened” the president
hasn’t done more to change the structure of Washington.

“I thought we were in such a place [in
2008], much like the Tea Party feels now, that the country … needed a
more drastic reconstruction – I have been saddened to see that someone
who ran on the idea that you can’t expect to get different results with
the same people and the same system has kept in place so much of the
same system and same people,” he said.

Stewart
has elaborated that one of his biggest disappointments is that many
people who were responsible for getting the country into our current
financial state have been left in place to fix the problems they
created: “I thought he understood the corrosiveness of the system
that existed, and I thought he was going to do more to blow the system
up.” New York Magazine just published a sharp
critique of Obama’s policies on this very topic, namely that his “failure
to demand a reckoning from the moneyed interests who brought the
economy down has cursed his first term, and could prevent a second.”
The article noted:

“What haunts the Obama administration is
what still haunts the country: the stunning lack of accountability for
the greed and misdeeds that brought America to its gravest financial
crisis since the Great Depression. There has been no legal, moral, or
financial reckoning for the most powerful wrongdoers. Nor have there
been meaningful reforms that might prevent a repeat catastrophe.”

But while Obama has given the financial system a free pass for losing
huge sums of money and requiring large taxpayer-funded bailouts, there
is one system that Obama has tried to blow up. He has essentially
declared war on our domestic oil companies since taking office. This is
not surprising; he had campaigned on this theme as well. That was the
largest beef that I had with then candidate Obama; that he was so
willing to marginalize and demonize the companies that provide over 90%
of the nation’s transportation fuel. It is hugely ironic that the
billions in taxes paid by the oil companies helped make some of these
bailouts possible (as I noted in
this story) — yet the oil companies are the ones Obama has chosen
to attack.

I expressed concern throughout the presidential campaign over Obama’s
energy policy proposals. I felt that he was exceedingly naive, and
that campaign naivety has shown up in his energy policies as president.
Policies — such as his recent decision to release oil from the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) — run counter to many of his other
positions (e.g., reducing dependence on oil, promoting renewable
energy), and increase the risk of future supply shocks. Many observers
have already pointed out that oil prices are now higher than they were
prior to the SPR release. As
this article succinctly put it (subscription required), during a
financial crisis you can print more money, but “you cannot print
oil.”

As a former Democratic state representative recently said to me “I
think Obama’s problem is that he is largely uninformed about energy.”
It would be nice, though, if he took some time to inform himself. We
know that he has an affinity for visiting renewable energy companies. I
wonder if he has ever thought about visiting an oil refinery? He might
learn that they make his trips on Air Force One
possible.

I think the result of being uninformed is that Obama believes that if
he marginalizes our domestic oil companies, that this will lift the
fortunes for renewable energy. In fact, far more likely is that as our
domestic oil companies are placed at a competitive disadvantage to their
foreign competitors, they will curtail production and shelve marginal
projects, and we will look to oil imports to fill the gap. That is why I
am against policies that I believe will place our domestic oil
companies at a disadvantage; this will ultimately weaken the U.S. (I am
not, however, against policies that raise the price of oil across the
board; those are the kinds of policies that I believe will truly
incentivize renewable energy).

But as I scan the Republican field, I don’t see anyone who can beat
Obama in the 2012 elections. Palin? Bachmann? No way. (I made my
feelings about Palin clear here,
and I thought it was a huge mistake for McCain to put her on the
ticket. Blame him for unleashing her on the public). Romney? Too liberal
for even large
segments of his own party, particularly the far right. The Tea
Party faction will support Palin or Bachmann, but some of the more
moderate Republicans would likely abstain before voting for them.

So what does this all mean? I think Obama gets reelected in 2012, and
we must endure mediocrity until at least the end of 2016. I am a firm
believer that past performance is a good indicator of future
performance, and thus we are unlikely to see any dramatic changes in his
policies. Further, unlike his first two years when he had a Democratic
majority, he now has to work with a Republican majority who will oppose
him at every turn.
That also means 5 more years of naive and counterproductive energy
policies. We will probably be treated to more futile releases from the
SPR (I wonder when he plans on refilling it?), and a country that is
weaker and more dependent on foreign oil at the end of his term.

But Osama bin Laden was eliminated on Obama’s watch. At least that’s
something.

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the controversial king of Kandahar and younger
half-brother of the Afghan president, was shot dead by one of his
bodyguards on Tuesday.

The assassination sent shock waves through
the country, throwing into doubt the already brittle stability of
Kandahar province where the Taliban have murdered dozens of police
officers and government officials over the last two years.

SCLC TODAY

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